In 2011, Namsa Leuba traveled to Guinea Conkary, her mother’s ancestral hometown, to embark upon Ya Kala Ben (Guinean for “Crossed Looks”), her first long-term photography project that explored “the representation of Africa identity in the Western imagination. As a Guinean-Swiss woman born and raised in the West, Leuba was neither “either/or” but both at the same time. Standing on the outside, rather than in the center of her respective cultures, gave her a wholly original vantage point, one that has informed her photography practice over the past decade.
.
“My Swiss heritage gave me an aesthetic sensibility for making pictures, and my African heritage and ancestors gave me a spiritual form for my work,” Leuba tells Dazed. “Depending on where we are situated in the world, we can have different perceptions. With photography was can say much more than a thousand words. It’s the perfect medium for me. My pictures are not the reality you know but expressions of my imagination.”
.
Liberated from constructs of rational thought, Leuba moves gracefully between the liminal space of fiction and fact, creating fantastical photographs that combine elements of documentary, fashion, and performance with singular aplomb. With publication of her first monograph, Crossed Looks (Damiani) and first solo exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Leuba brings together five major bodies of personal work made over the past decade in Guinea, Benin, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tahiti, as well as selections of commercial and editorial work.
.
.
